


Others

by anavengerstolethetardis



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 19:16:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14243976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anavengerstolethetardis/pseuds/anavengerstolethetardis
Summary: An old, unfinished story about a vandal, a guardian, and a new threat.





	Others

**Author's Note:**

> This hasn't been edited at all. Got bored a while ago and wrote it. 
> 
> If you want me to finish it, let me know.

A chalice, shattered across the floor. Broken furniture littered the room, legs of chairs bent at odd angles like victims of an unknown war. Stained glass covered the floor, crunching under heavy boots. The windows above were already occupied, cawing ravens and eerily quiet song birds resting where the glass once stood, proud, overlooking a majestic hall that was now turned to ruin, razed by an unaware enemy. The beauty of it, of the Great Hall, still remained however. It seemed nothing could tarnish the carved wood of her ceilings, nor the grandness of the hall itself. As the warlock moved through the mess of a battle past, he heard a noise. It was quiet, nothing, but yet it was. A scratch. A simple tick of what sounded like a claw against stone. He paused, listening. He felt something, his light reaching out. His ghost asked to leave, to investigate, but he held it back. Not yet, he said. It could be anything. The ghost sighed, inwardly, an expression only the guardian could hear. Gently he pushed back a rug, unceremoniously draped from the edge of a table. It slunk to the floor, a puff of dust rising in it's wake. There was movement, something trying to push away, further into the corner. A survivor? he dared not hope, but he did mull over the possibility, slowly crouching down to investigate under the table. The ghost emerged, shining his light across the space. Sure enough, hidden in the dark, a lone survivor lay. 

The vandal hissed at him softly, clearly exhausted. Odd blood dripped from a chest wound, not fatal, but enough to weaken the beast. A rifle lay next to it, but the vandal made no move for it. The guardian did not either, his own weapon half-raised but not pointed to the creature. It was odd, he should have known it was there. His light should have felt it. Even now, looking straight into it's eyes, he could not feel it's darkness. Another noise, smaller, but the vandal had not moved. _Another!_ the ghost cried, but the guardian did not move. Neither did the vandal. Even as a hand reached out behind the creature, a small hand, tiny even, and pulled at one of its arms. 

The guardian froze. _A human,_ he said to the Ghost. Ghost did not respond, simply watching. 

"Tik tik, tik!” it was a child, speaking nonsense. Pulling at the vandal. The guardian did not know what was happening, simply watching as the child climbed across the vandal, patting it heavily with one hand, then waddled toward the guardian. 

"Wea! Pew! Blehh!" the child giggled, and pointed to the Ghost, hovering silently above it's head.

"Pretty!" the little girl cried, looking back to the vandal, who shivered a bit, seemingly motioning at the child. The girl made a noise, then wandered back to the vandal, who pulled the girl tight and held her close. It confused the guardian, the vandals behavior, until the vandal turned to glance at him quickly. Then it dawned on him. The vandal was protecting the child. From him. He looked to the Ghost, who looked back at him. It couldn't be...

"Can you speak?" the guardian asked. 

"I know your tongue," the vandal hissed, in the weird, rumbling tone all Fallen had. 

"What are you doing here?"

"Injured in the fight against fake guardians. This child, was lost. Your kind would kill," the fallen's words weren't making sense. 

_Why would guardians be a danger to a child?_ he asked his Ghost. The Ghost responded with the equivalent of a shoulder shrug, its metal protrusions shifting outward. 

"Guardians were attacking humans? And what, the Fallen decided to save the day?" the guardian retorted. 

"No, no, Fallen attack. Guardians attack Fallen back. Others, they come. Kill all. Fallen, guardians, humans. They are not guardians, not fallen, not Cabal," it hissed angrily, "not Taken, not Hive. Fallen do not know what they are. Humans, confused. Rejoice, then scream. Death, nothing else. Everything," the vandal seemed to nod it's head, as if agreeing to it's own account of events. 

The warlock's ghost was already combing the ruins, scanning. _Nothing,_ it sounded surprised. 

_Keep looking,_ the guardian responded. 

_No, there's nothing. No light, no darkness. Just nothing. A clean slate._

_There's damage everywhere, how can there be nothing?_ the warlock replied, concern growing. 

_It's like the matter simply became a new shape, like it had its own mind. No remnants of any contact,_ the ghost even sounded concerned now. The warlock felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. This place, this new enemy, it wasn't safe. He needed to know what they were up against. He turned back to look at the vandal, still holding the child. 

"Let's go."

__________________

Immediately the Tower was up in arms when his ship landed. The guardians all had their weapons drawn, watching, waiting. There were gasps, shouts when the vandal and the guardian arrived, the child still clutched tightly in the vandals arms. 

"Stay close to me," the guardian warned, waving away two angry looking guardians, "I need to see the Vanguard!" the guardian shouted. He had radioed ahead, but no clear instructions had been given to him. The minute they had heard fallen inbound, his communications had been scrambled. 

When they were finally in the Vanguard's chambers, three weapons were pointed directly at the two of them. 

"And to what do we owe the pleasure?" Ikora Rey asked, dangerously, flanked by Cayde-6 and Zavala, both angrily staring down the vandal. When Cayde saw the child, he visibly flinched, swinging his gun down.

"What is this, a hostage negotiation?" he asked incredulously, sauntering off to the side. The warlock knew better than to underestimate him, thinking he would wait things out. Cayde was dangerous, maybe more so than the other two. 

"There is something you need to hear, and it's not something I can show you," the warlock replied, motioning to the vandal. It looked at him, paused, then slowly lowered the child down. It refused to let go of its wrist, wanting to be picked up again. The Vanguard watched closely, Zavala seemingly confused by the events happening in front of him. Eventually, by the vandal's prodding, the child ran to Cayde. 

"Shiny!" it cried, pointing up at Cayde's face, then looking back to the vandal. The vandal nodded at it, a movement that rippled through it's whole body. The child giggled, then turned back to Cayde.

"I can't feel your darkness," Ikora spoke, ignoring the child as it pulled at Cayde's cloak, distracting the hunter. 

The vandal shifted, it's attention turning from the child to Ikora. 

"I am not darkness. I am not light. I simply am," 

Ikora tilted her head. "Interesting. Why have you come here?"

Now it was time for the vandal to tilt it's head. "Did not request, yes. Brought, after others kill guardians. Kill Fallen. Kill humans."

Zavala turned to address the warlock. "What it is talking about, others? Cabal? Taken?"

The vandal chuckled. "Others kill Cabal, Hive, Taken. Others are nothing."

"My ghost couldn't get anything from scans," the guardian added, as his ghost materialized and starting transferring the scan data, "there was actually nothing."

Ikora picked up a tablet from the center table, before returning to the vandal, who shifted. 

"Get a med team in here to patch up the vandal," Ikora called to one of the techs, "and put the scan data up on the hologram."

A hologram buzzed to life in the center of the table, numbers and words flying across the air. Ikora seemed to be reading it, but the warlock wasn't sure how. 

"That's odd, he was right," Ikora motioned to Zavala and Cayde, who had picked up the child, ignoring the incessant prodding and poking that it did. 

"Bring up the visual scan," Cayde said. The ghost's feed came to live in front of them. 

"That room is destroyed!" Cayde cried, "How could you not find anything?! Do you still work?"

"My systems are all functioning normally, thank you," the Ghost retorted. Cayde just rolled his eyes. 

"Fine, fine, then how is there nothing?"

"Cayde," Ikora said, "these scans are saying that the atoms rearranged themselves," Ikora seemed lost to thought. 

"But... that's impossible," Cayde said quietly, "right?"

"No, it's not impossible," Zavala's voice was low, his brow furrowed. He raised one hand to his face, running a gloved hand across it. "The 'others' that's what the vandal called it. I should have known," Zavala's chuckle was dark, almost strangled. It scared the warlock to see him in such a state. 

"Zavala?" Ikora asked, turning. 

"Not guardians, not the darkness. Others," Zavala sighed. 

"Uh, yeah, we got that," Cayde was impatient. 

"The Others are a Dead Orbit sect, one Arach Jalaal thought was lost to time itself," Zavala said, stepping forward, "Guardians lost to light, lost to darkness, lost to everything. The Arach and I destroyed them ourselves," Zavala seemed guilty for a moment, lost to a memory, "the Nine even considered them a threat. We thought we had destroyed them before they could come to true power. Obviously, we were wrong."

His words hung in the air for a moment, still. 

"They have no honor, no code. They die, then back. Just like guardians. Without little lights," the vandal said, seemingly unperturbed by Zavala's bomb. 

"They have no connection to light, and none to darkness, so how do they even exist?" Cayde asked, looking around. 

"Cayde, there's a lot of things in this universe that we know nothing about. This appears to be one of them," Ikora said, already flipping through books and marking pages. 

"Well you destroyed them once, commander. Can't you do it again?' he asked, motioning to Zavala. 

Zavala sighed, faintly. "It's.... Difficult to explain," he paused. 

"Well?" Cayde's impatience showing through once again. 

"Devils," the vandals disgust at the word was slight, but there. They turned to him, questioning. 

"Yes," Zavala agreed, pausing. 

"Uh, explain?" Cayde prodded. 

"Others take Fallen. Guardians come, House Devils join their fight, if only for a day," the vandal clearly didn't like sharing the information, but had deemed it necessary. 

"You fought alongside the House of Devils?" Ikora asked, surprise showing through her guarded expression. 

"I wouldn't say alongside, more of... An unspoken truce. We would not have been able to banish the Others without the Fallen's help," Zavala added, "I've always believed it was the light and the dark working together that allowed the Others to be vanquished. Otherwise, they would have been too strong. They found something in what we call nothing, something strange, something powerful... No guardian since has done what they've done, though some have tried."

"How many are there, of these Others?" Ikora asked, curious. 

"I'm not sure, it was hard to tell. At least thirty, from the way Jalaal talked about it."

"So there's some oddballs called Others. Who are powerful because of nothing. Annnd they're what, trying to come back from being lost where, exactly?" Cayde turned to Zavala, "Oh right, in time. And now we've got to kill them." 


End file.
